Sand Land Hands-On: Akira Toriyama’s Legacy Lives On
We went to the offices of Bandai Namco America to take a look at what will be the next title to bear Akira Toriyama’s stamp.
The world of manga and anime is much bigger than we sometimes think. This world is constantly growing, and many times there are hidden gems among its most famous authors that have often been overshadowed by their most popular works. With such legendary names as Akira Toriyama, it is clear that one could know all of his works, but it was only a few years ago that the title Sand Land came back into the spotlight.
Published in 2000, this one-shot manga has certainly not been in the spotlight like Dragon Ball or Dr. Slump. But things have changed, as just last year a movie was released in Japan, an anime recently came to tell this story, and a video game is coming to complement the adaptation that takes its characters out of the manga.
Without expecting much, we traveled to Bandai Namco Entertainment’s offices in California to get a first-hand look at what this project had in store. And boy, what a surprise we found. These are my first impressions of Sand Land.
A sheriff, a demon and a thief ride on a tank
There’s not much to say about the story and how it starts, because that was definitely one of the first surprises we encountered. Before we started playing, it was revealed to us that our preview would start right in the middle of the game, with a save file 30 hours into the game, starting with a completely new story. For those who have been following the news about this title, it won’t come as much of a surprise as it did to those who attended this preview, but the title goes beyond what appears in the manga and the movie released last year. Our adventure began with the journey to the Forest Land, a neighboring area of the Sand Land, full of forests and water, which seeks to conquer these barren lands.
In our main group we have the Prince of Demons Beelzebub, the Sheriff Rao and the Prince’s companion Thief. The little demon is strong in punching and agile in dodging enemy attacks. When necessary, he can use his demonic powers to unleash stronger attacks, throw giant rocks, or even call upon his two companions for help. In close combat, he has fought desert bandits, fierce dinosaurs, and even giant scorpions.
By this time, we had access to a number of very interesting vehicles, both for their different use and attack mechanics, as well as their designs. The player can summon these vehicles using the famous capsules that we saw in Dragon Ball. Within our list of vehicles, we had a tank, a motorcycle, a kind of bipedal robot, and a hovercraft, each with different attack modes, resistances, and speeds. Although the tank was the standard vehicle, using the motorcycle through the desert made everything go faster. And well, we even had fun riding tame raptors in the desert.
In Forest Land and back home
The first point of our adventure to Forest Land was to enter an abandoned temple with the hovercraft, where we had to look for levers to raise or lower the water level to reach the next point and move forward, as our little demon cannot swim. This location allowed us to not only use the hovercraft, but also the tank to defend ourselves from giant crocodiles and other dangers along the way. This temple had a huge verticality that made it not just a simple puzzle, but a fun platforming experience. At the end of this temple, we had to face our first boss, an octopus that wanted us to be its next meal. Luckily, the hovercraft had the necessary weapons to defend the party, with its main machine gun and a rocket launcher that can be switched while the others reload. The vehicles also have the help of Rao and Thief in case you need some extra power (or last-minute repairs).
Our arrival in Forest Land led us to a very different world from Sand Land, with very different elements, but that too was our next mission. After meeting the Resistance, our mission became a rescue mission where we were able to use Beelzebub’s stealth abilities to enter a massive fortress and rescue a kidnapped princess. This mechanic gives a comical twist to the stealth genre, as instead of attacking the soldiers that get in our way, the Prince of Demons will “scare them to death.” We have to be careful, though, because every guard that notices our presence will send us back to the beginning of one of the rooms.
After a successful rescue mission, it was time to return to Sand Land to stop the attack of some tanks coming from Forest Land. Before heading back, we were able to check out the customization options for our vehicles. With this we can improve different parts of the vehicles such as weapons or engines, chips that help to repair them or give them more speed thanks to the series of items that we go through on the way. Back in the Sand Land desert, fighting these tanks not only allowed us to test some of the improvements we had made, but also to test the different vehicles for this type of combat. We also had the opportunity to use a type of mini-mech that, in addition to shooting at the enemy tanks, allows us to hit them with a powerful hook to the sky.
An oasis in the desert
One of the most surprising aspects was the visual detail of Sand Land. We played this version on PlayStation 5 and it really shows the potential of the new generation of consoles. The action is fast and keeps the frames per second very steady, even with explosions, smoke, and particles flying everywhere. The art direction does a great job of bringing the anime style to 3D, especially in the characters’ faces and Beelzebub’s hair. In both Sand Land and Forest Land, the care of the elements is noticeable, with huge scenarios that do not lose detail at a distance. The animations run in a very pristine way and certainly have the charm of an anime.
How did the Sand Land project come about?
Part of our preview was accompanied by an interview with Keishu Minam, producer of the title, who told us how the project worked and that, surprisingly, it all started with the game. “We have manga, game and anime. To be honest, the Sand Land project started with the game first, and we decided to make the anime. The one-shot of the manga is completed in the game, and that led us to create the anime, and that’s how we expanded the Sand Land work.” It’s worth noting that this game and the Forest Land story scenarios were supervised by Akira Toriyama himself.
Territories to explore
The time with the game was not enough, and there were still some aspects to review. One of them was the exploration of the open world. While we saw that it is a huge map divided into two parts (Sand Land and Forest Land), the quick tours due to time pressure did not allow us to see as much as we wanted. We saw maps that were quite large in terms of size, but we will have to see what kind of encounters or places there are to discover. On the other hand, there was also a lack of depth in the development of our characters, because while we were able to take a quick look at the skill tree of Beelzebub and company, we did not have time to see how it developed.
Still, Sand Land leaves us with a great first taste and will surely be a very complete experience in both video game and anime. For now, we can only wait for its arrival on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC.